The Constellation's registry number

NCC-1017. I know people have wondered why a Constitution class Starship would have such a low registry number instead of something in the 1700's.

I had a thought...maybe the Constellation used to be a Saladin class ship, you know, with a single warp nacelle in place of the secondary hull.

Then, at some point, the Constellation was upgraded, the secondary hull and twin warp nacelles were added to convert it into a Constitution class starship. It kept the same name and registry that it had before.

May be reaching a little but I think it would be a good explanation of why the registry number is so low compared to other Constitution class ships.

I wondered that also but I've read where it would have been too hard to distinguish between 1701 and 1710 on the small TV screens back in the 60's, while 1017 would be more obvious that it was a different ship.

I had a thought...maybe the Constellation used to be a Saladin class ship, you know, with a single warp nacelle in place of the secondary hull.

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This idea will be promptly snapped up and added to the books as the official story. Stranger things have happened.

My father attended Tufts University and wrote a story for a student publication back then. In his story, he described a student crossing the campus and noting the elephant statue (which I believe is no longer there). The fictional student also noted a penny balanced in the up-raised trunk, a good luck / wishing well tradition on campus—according to the story. Yet no such tradition existed. By the time my brothers attended Tufts, the penny-in-the-trunk "tradition" was well known and practiced.

(The story was about a student who breaks into a professor's office and steals a test. The details in the story, including the type of locks on the doors and filing cabinet, were so well researched that the elephant tradition was not the only thing taken seriously. The admins called my dad onto the carpet to ask him about this story, and certain exams were delayed while new tests were written.)

They used an old plastic model kit to show the (non-remastered) Constellation, didn't they? I wonder if they were tempted to switch a few of the bits around - TOS kitbashing, if you will. I mean, it's not as if this was a particularly important model, right?

They used an old plastic model kit to show the (non-remastered) Constellation, didn't they?

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Yes, while the shots from the front weren't too bad, the rear shots were awful, the lack of detail on the impulse engines and rear (undamaged) nacelle made it very obvious this was just a cheap model thrown together for the show.

Again, it probably wasn't a big deal on the small TV's in the 60's but I remember watching the re-runs in the 70's and it was very noticeable.

I think the remastered version of The Doomsday Machine did an excellent job with the CGI Constellation.

While I've generally favored the idea that the Constellation was upgraded to a Constitution-class from an earlier design, I tend to think that earlier design was nearly identical in a way not too unlike the Soyuz- and Miranda-classes were.

Two simple answers. As stated before they took a kit model of the Eterprise and simply changed the order of the numbers provided.

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Yes, we know why they did what they did, but I was trying to look for an explanation within the context of the show. Also, they went to the trouble of coming up with a "CONSTELLATION" decal, so how much harder would it have been to come up with a 2 digit (or even 1 digit) change to the registration?

My "in-universe" explaination was that they had numbered it the same as an earlier Constellation. However, it was a different numbreing system back then, and instead of adding a letter (such as ncc-1701-A), they just used the same number.

My "in-universe" explaination was that they had numbered it the same as an earlier Constellation. However, it was a different numbering system back then, and instead of adding a letter (such as ncc-1701-A), they just used the same number.

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I wholeheartedly agree. Especially since according to the Matt Jefferies production sketch with the 17th cruiser design the "A"ppendix was originally considered for a modification or upgrade, then, but not necessarily for ships named to honor the accomplishments of a previous one.

It doesn't make a lot of sense IMO to take the saucer section of a Saladin-class ship and make a new Contitution-class vessel out of it. After all, despite outward similarities, the interior components and layout of a Saladin-class and a Constitution-class saucer have to be vastly different since the shuttlebay, main deflector and warp engineering (plus at least some of the cargo holds) on a Constitution-class ship are in the secondary hull which doesn't exist on a Saladin-class. You could make a case that a Saladin-class doesn't carry shuttlecraft but warp engineering and the main deflector are non-negotiable. From the episode, we can tell that main engineering on the Constellation is very similar to the Enterprise (notwithstanding the revisions to the Engineering set which took place between Seasons 1 and 2). To convert a Saladin saucer to a Consitution-class would involve a lot more than just plopping it onto a waiting secondary hull, you would have to gut out most (if not all) of the interior of the saucer. It would make much more sense to construct a new saucer.

Also, in the original Technical Manual, all Saladin-class ships have 3-digit registry numbers starting with NCC-500, so NCC-1017 doesn't really fit into the Saladin-class any more than it does the Constitution-class. I agree with the theory that NCC-1017 was a re-use of an old registry number after a previous Constellation carried it.

They should have just gone with NCC-1710. Yes, TV screens were much smaller in the 60s than they are today, but we only saw the registry in one shot and the different name, plus all the damage, should have made it pretty clear that it wasn't the Enterprise.